


Auctoritas Principis

by kate_fire



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Sheev Palpatine, Empress Leia Organa, Gen, I Blame Tumblr, I'm so sorry, Pathetic Darth Vader, Sad Darth Vader, and celinamarniss, as in pathetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:00:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29613279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_fire/pseuds/kate_fire
Summary: With Emperor Palpatine's sudden demise, the Empire is thrown into chaos. Instead of claiming the Imperial Throne, Sith Lord Vader announces Palpatine's successor: Leia Organa.Leia just went from having a bad day to a bad year. We've all been there.Misskirby's tumblr post gave me such brainworms I had to get it out.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> From: https://misskirby.tumblr.com/post/641355811272245248/as-much-as-i-love-vader-getting-to-fuck-palpatine
> 
> Auctoritas Principis: the supreme moral authority, a term used for the power held by the Roman Emperors outside of the constitutions and Senate. Auctoritas was considered the general prestige held by a person ("more than advice, but less than command") and could be inherited.
> 
> As always, I blame celinamarniss. She's the one who sent me the link, my source for all the EU stuff, my rock and my wall to bounce stuff off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with new banner from celinamarniss!

Leia wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. Within days of the Emperor’s death, Rebel leadership had been scrambling to prepare for the next step, trying desperately to anticipate what the new presumed Emperor Vader would do, where he would go. Leia was expecting to be summoned for a meeting, to touch base with some of her contacts and discuss what she hoped would be a final battle. Vader rarely stayed in one place for long; he certainly preferred life on a ship than on Imperial Center. He would be easy to dispatch, hopefully. 

But her father, who usually fulfilled the Senator by proxy when she was unavailable, suddenly had to make a trip. “To speak with old friends,” he’d said. They both knew that meant contacts from before the Clone Wars. To her parents’ chagrin she’d not-so secretly chafed at the restrictions on information. Her diplomatic missions were easily arranged, able to be coordinated in days, hours even. Emergencies were happening all over the galaxy, especially under the Empire. If there was anyone who had to leave on a sudden trip, it could have been her. But Bail insisted he could travel lighter, faster, alone with the small ship and a few droids to help.

So it was Leia who took the Alderaanian pod on the Senate floor when Vader finally emerged from his week-long isolation. It was Leia who heard him speak to the collected Senate. She took her place on the Senate floors before he swept grandly onto the Imperial pod and had felt cold at the sight of him. Leia had been cold all morning and it was getting worse.

“The Force has revealed to me the name of the Emperor’s successor,” he announced as if there was a single person on the floor who still believed in the Force, and would believe him as if he wasn’t just about to take up the most single powerful position in the galaxy only under the onus of some mystical religion he’d all but wiped out years ago.

Leia fisted her hands, hidden below sight by the front of the pod. Something was wrong. It felt like she and the entire Senate were in a snowstorm, hurtling down an icy hill on a child’s sled, unable to see what was in front of them.

“The Force has decreed that the best person to drive the fate of the Empire into the future is Senator Leia Organa.”

The snow went white in Leia’s eyes, the sound of an avalanche in her ears.

“No!” she cried before she could stop herself. 

From the pod floating in the middle of the Senate, a single dark shaft split the avalanche and echoed in her head. **_YES._ **

Leia looked up into the black lenses of the helmet. The senators around her were rioting, shouting, screaming.

Vader held up a hand and every voice in the room was silenced. Leia felt cold, not just on the outside of her skin, but also the inside, a fine shiver between skin and muscle.

She stared at Vader. Deep inside her, a tiny flame sparked to life. Her eyes narrowed slightly. Her chin lifted. And while around her the senators coughed and gagged and froze, Leia met the eyes of the person offering her the galaxy and she _burned_ with the injustice of it all. 

“I… accept,” she said quietly into the silence of the Senate floor, and around her, the avalanche melted.


	2. Chapter 2

Vader was suffocating. 

Old slaves on Tatooine told stories of the tunnels left by krayt dragons, how unexpected travelers could be caught in one as the dragon passed, and now Vader felt himself surrounded. The sand was sliding in around him, too fast for him to dig his way out, with only a brief bright, shining light up ahead indicating the exit of the tunnel before disappearing.

It was a disturbingly familiar feeling.

They’d never formed a Force bond. He’d severed any vestiges of his old, traitorous master’s Force bond back on Mustafar, and Master Sidious had promised never to command him, control him like that. But now, with his (former? How had that happened?) Master’s body lying in state beside him, he realized what another lie that had been. Hundreds of tiny bonds were rupturing, oozing Dark into the Force. It was as if he’d managed to uproot some weed, and instead of a single tap root, found millions of tiny tendrils in his mind.

Vader was bleeding without blood loss.

He had commanded his master’s body to lie in state in the large-windowed viewing halls above the Senate, under some half-conceived notion of What Was Proper. Wrapped in his finest, the corpse cooled on the dias. Vader was holding the decomposition at bay with the Force, but in all honesty his master had started to decay from inside long ago. All the power of the Dark side couldn’t hold back death. This was finally true, and Vader knelt next to the proof, hitting him home in a way he didn’t allow himself to consider before. 

He couldn’t look at Sidious, but also couldn’t bear to pull himself away. He was sure that the various Senators, aides and guards thought that he knelt next to the dias for days out of some homage, some type of prayer. A religious zealot in deep meditation. His prosthetic limbs made it so that he could kneel at his master’s feet one last time as long as Vader wished, but it wasn’t loyalty or sorrow or faith that kept him there. As quickly as Sidious’s Dark was bleeding from Vader, it was replaced by just as much Darkness of his own as his mind whirled down paths worn from Fear and Anger.

How  _ dare _ his Master leave him?

How  _ dare _ he not have any plans after his death?

How  _ dare _ he force Vader to deal with all this?

Fury and hatred spun in their dust devil in his mind, circling around the ever-present eye of Fear.  _ What was he going to do  _ **_now_ ** ?

Vader cast his gaze out through the windows onto the floors as the representatives gathered in the hallways. Contempt fueled the hatred, disgust sparked the fury.  _ Worthless _ . Imbecilic, worthless, sniveling cowards, grasping at the grit left by his master’s perfect vast plans and calling it pearls. It was  _ their _ fault he was here, their fault the Republic collapsed. Best to kill them all. Destroy the senate. 

Burn it all down.  _ Burn _ , like Vader burned.

Unacknowledged, many senators and their staff below him started to choke.

Then, a sudden shaft of relief in the krayt tunnel. A single spear of cold, pure ice, melting to refreshing water in his mind. Vader’s eyes caught on a white dress below, illuminated by a nearby window.

_This one_ , whispers the Force, as strong as he’d ever heard it. He’d never understood why the Jedi never heard the Force _speak_. 

Wait.

This one what?

Silence from the Force.

Alone in the dark, next to his Master’s corpse, Vader accidentally fell back into old patterns. He let his mind grow silent, focusing only on the sounds from his respirator. He reached out, touched the Force again.

_ This one _ . The whispers came from  _ everywhere _ . 

**_This one_ ** _ this one  _ **_This One THIS ONE_ **

It was overwhelming. He couldn’t think, couldn’t concentrate. That one? A child? Barely a woman, a princess playing as a senator? 

**_This one_ **

A moment, a vision. He could only see white shoes, the bottom of an extravagant gown. He’s kneeling. A delicate hand reaches out, gently rests on his shoulder in affirmation. The ice-cold water quenches the never-ending fire of the Dark side. Peace.

_ This one _ .

Vader exhales, rises. He knows what he must do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vader, even the Force thinks you're an idiot.


	3. Chapter 3

The silence in the Senate held as long as it took for Leia’s security guards, friends and loyal subjects who’d watched her for years, help her hustle back to her rooms. She could feel them exchanging glances over her head, passing looks back and forth between them and her entourage. Neither the guards nor her entourage, which consisted mainly of Winter and a few aides—people to hold her things, run errands, bring meals—spoke. The halls passed in a blur, her feet finding her quarters on habit and instinct. Leia wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings. She could only see Vader, standing silently in the middle of the Senate, black helmet staring back at her impassively. 

In her rooms, hands shaking, she did the only thing she could think of to do. She dismissed her entourage, even Winter, and reached for her holocom. Leia could have dialed the number blind.

“Mama?” she asked. It felt strange to break the heavy, pressing silence. Her voice sounded like a child’s voice after a nightmare. She wanted to wake up. “Mama, did you see?”

“I did.” Breha Organa’s eyes were shining with unshed tears. “Oh my baby girl.”

“What am I going to do?” Leia collapsed in a chair, staring at the comm. “This isn’t supposed to happen. I’m not supposed to be Emperor—Empress.” She curled in on herself.

“There’s no taking it back,” her mother said, queen’s voice gentle but implacable. “Leia, you are the daughter of queens and you have a duty. You can do this.”

The daughter of queens. Slowly Leia took a breath, held it, released it. Another.  _ I am the daughter of queens _ . The phrase from her childhood helped calm her like it always did. She would imagine a long line of Alderaanian queens, of which she would be the latest, staring down at her in silent, unyielding support born of generations of duty. 

“And you’ll have help,” Breha continued. “Me, your father,—many of the senators know who you are and what you truly stand for.”

Leia wiped away tears she didn’t know she was crying as her heart rate slowed and she felt more in control of herself. She kept trying to breath out the stress. “Yes, mama.” They both knew the lines weren’t secure, Breha couldn’t mention all the Rebellion leaders and members that held seats in the Senate.

“And… Lord Vader?” her mama said delicately.

“What?”

“I believe he’s on your side as well,” Breha picked her words with caution. “He certainly wants you in power.”

“But-but  _ why _ ?”

“Perhaps the Force did truly tell him so,” her mother shrugged. “But Leia, as long as he’s on your side, you must utilize him. The man could have been Emperor, and he is all that stands between you and some very unpleasant people now. You  _ must  _ take advantage of that.”

Leia’s mind briefly flitted to a terrible comparison between herself and the Emperor Palpatine. Both of them holding the leash of this dark and terrible person. Her stomach tightened and she could taste metal at the back of her throat. Could she do that?

“Yes, Mama.”

Breha reached out and laid a hand on the table in front of her. Whenever her mama gave her advice on Alderaan, they would sit side by side and Breha would put a hand on Leia’s knee. It was grounding without being smothering, caring without giving a full hug and Leia could feel her mother’s calming presence spread through her own body through a single touch of her mother’s warm hand.

Now Leia put her own hand on her knee, trying to find that calm and warmth. She was not a naturally calm person on her own. Leia felt her heart reach out to Alderaan, halfway across the galaxy from her current location. She could almost find that peace, could almost feel the warmth of her quarters in the palace, surrounded by love and family.

Almost.

“Have you heard from Papa yet?” 

The subtle tightening around the eyes, the deliberate inhalation of breath. Her mother hadn’t. 

“He was traveling quite far,” Breha said carefully. “He only left recently, he might still be in hyperspace.”

Leia’s jaw tightened in return. The line was still unsecured. Even if Breha knew where Bail was, she couldn’t share it.

“He’s survived this far.” Leia could almost feel her mama struggle for hope. “Your father will be fine.”

“Of course.”

Leia had a bad feeling about this.

  
  


* * *

The doors behind him opened and Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin allowed himself a small smile as he turned. “Bail Organa,” he said. The man in question was pushed forward, but refused to stumble or fall. 

“Welcome to the Death Star.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, the suggestion of a plot is a lie!


	4. Chapter 4

The Emperor— _former_ Emperor—’s rooms were dark and terribly cold, despite what the thermostat said. Leia had turned up the heat and had her entire entourage tearing down heavy satin curtains and wall hangings, dragging out obelisks and statues that gave her chills without her knowing why. She didn’t even want to touch half of the items in the office, and was enjoying the delegation.

It was into this mess that Darth Vader walked, and knelt before the ugly desk.

Two of her entourage were literally in the middle of lifting the desk to move it away. They gave Vader a shocked glance, looked back at Leia, and cautiously lowered the desk to the floor again.

“What is thy bidding, my Master?” rumbled the lowered helmet.

 _Master_?

It actually took a moment for Leia to realize that he was talking to her. Then she had to force herself to not share shocked glances with her friends and assistants. 

_Master??_

Vader did realize that she was _female_ , right?

Leia needed to sit down. She couldn’t. The chair behind the desk was one of the first things they had removed, and she’d sent it directly to a furnace. She nodded at the men, and they carefully lifted the desk and moved it away, leaving Leia with nothing between her and the monster in black kneeling at her feet.

How to approach this.

Leia actually had no idea.

“I’m going to need some time,” she said, unconsciously echoing the monster’s initial statement at his—previous—master’s death. “Let me think about it.”

The silence echoed between them.

“Time,” Vader said. His voice was flat, emotionless, but Leia suddenly felt that he was-surprised? Shocked? She had a sudden giddy urge, quickly repressed, to mock him like she would her father. _Yes, time, Lord Vader, are you not familiar with the concept? Can’t be hard; for someone your age I’d think you’d be very familiar with it by now._ She clamped her mouth shut.

“Are you not pleased?” Vader demanded in a voice that now very much hinted at confusion. 

There was no hope for it. She’d restrained herself long enough. Her mouth got away from her. “The decor is terrible,” Leia said flatly, “and the Empire is a mess. It’s going to be impossible to get anything done. Any reasonable person would give up before it’s started.”

“The...decor.” 

The very idea of the Empire’s attack dog having an opinion on interior decorating almost made Leia break into hysterical laughter. Instead, she swallowed it down and waved at the curtains behind her. 

Vader’s head tilted to view them, the deep red colors reflected in his helmet’s lenses.

“They’re hideous.”

A pause. Then: “Are they.”

And that was, of course, when the first assassin struck.

(not exactly then, actually, the very uncomfortable silence between the two lasted for what seemed like forever before a blaster bolt arched through the open door behind Vader. Leia found herself yanked to one side by an invisible hand and the bolt shattered the window behind her, which in turn sucked the remaining hideous curtains and a few decorative items out before Vader threw a desk to block the hole. Then he’d spun around and bolted out of the office, chasing the assassin through the halls of Imperial Palace, thumps and shouts indicating the people he’d tossed or pushed aside in his rush. In the ensuing mess, Leia wished for a moment that she’d gone out the window with the ugly cup and its neighbor, a weird-looking urn.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to mark this story as complete even though I've got a few chapters in the writings because I'm not sure how long the inspiration will last.


End file.
